Spring Break
A&M marketing department head Conant dies
By: Meagan O'Toole-Pitts
Issue date: 7/1/09 Section: News
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A memorial service honoring the life of Dr. Conant will be held at 12:00 noon, Friday, July 3, 2009 at First United Methodist Church of Bryan, followed by a private family burial.
He had been undergoing chemotherapy after he was diagnosed with leukemia.
"It was absolutely unexpected. It was a great shock," said Leonard Berry, distinguished marketing professor. "We received a an e-mail from Jeff one week ago telling us he was diagnosed with a particular type of leukemia, and that it was a highly treatable disease and he expected to be back in the office in December."
Conant began his 23-year career at Texas A&M University in 1986 as an associate marketing professor before earning his doctorate degree in marketing from Arizona State University the same year. He received his bachelor's degree in political science from New York University in 1977 and his master's degree in marketing and finance from the University of Arizona in 1979.
"Ever since he joined in 1986, his colleagues and I were in awe and admiration of the time and effort he devoted to prepare for each class session, the mastery of the subject he demonstrated when he was teaching," said Rajan Varadarajan, distinguished marketing professor and preceding department head. "He will go into A&M history as one of the teaching legends. He was such an outstanding teacher, at the undergraduate and graduate level. He had this burning passion to excel in teaching."
He became a marketing professor in 2000 and the head of the marketing department in 2006.
"In the last three years as the department head, the faculty, staff and students have come to know him as a very caring, considerate and compassionate department head. The thing that stood out was the great lengths he went to publicize and recognize the accomplishments of the faculty and doctoral students," Varadarajan said. "Anytime a faculty member or staff member or a student received an award for outstanding teaching, or outstanding service, or outstanding research, the world was made aware of it; he made sure this news was very widely publicized."
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